Abstract:
Background:Dietary diversity has been considered a potential 'proxy' indicator to reflect nutrient intake adequacy. It is the measure of food consumption that reflects individual or household access to a variety of foods. However, information on dietary diversity among pregnant women is scarce in the study area.
Objective: To assess dietary diversity and associated factors among pregnant women
Methods:-An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted among 529 pregnant women attending Ante natal care at Injibara General Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia. The study participants were selected using systematic sampling technique. Data were collected using structured interviewer administered questionnaire.A 24-hour dietary recall method was used to collect data on all foods consumed during the last 24 hours before the survey. The food items were categorized into 10 groups to generate dietary diversity score. Descriptive statistics was performed to describe the demographic, socioeconomic and obstetric related factors. Bi-variable and multivariable binary logistic regression models were used to identify independent predictors of dietary diversity. All tests were two sides andP<0.05 was used to declare statistical significance.
Results: The proportion of pregnant women who had adequate dietary diversity was 38.2% with 95% (34.2%- 42.5%). On multivariable logistic regression analyses, after adjusting for other variables attending primary education (AOR=0.29, CI: 0.11, 0.71), completed secondary education (AOR =0.21, CI: 0.10, 0.44), being merchant by occupation (AOR =0.39, CI: 0.14, 0.94), husband who had not attend education (AOR=0.08, CI: 0.02, 0.41) and competed secondary education (AOR =0.22, CI: 0.09, 0.51) , being multigravida (AOR= 0.49, CI: 0.27,0.90) and being grand gravida (AOR= 0.24, CI: 0.07,0.82) were negatively associated with having adequate dietary diversity. Conversely, attending ANC services 3 times (AOR=2.45, CI: 1.31, 4.86) and attending 4 & above times (AOR=3.80, CI: 1.79, 8.15) were positively associated with to have adequately dietary diversity.
Conclusion: The prevalence of adequate dietary diversity among pregnant women was low. Maternal educations, husbands’ educational, maternal occupation, frequency of pregnancy were independent predictors of having adequately diversified diet among the pregnant women. The findings imply the need for improving women and husbands’ educational level, promoting family planning and increasing ANC visit of pregnant mothers are recommended to improve women’s adequate dietary diversity.